LET'S talk about sex. Or more specifically, let's talk about gender balance in the workplace, and the concept of "positive discrimination".

Positive discrimination is an ugly term, and something of an oxymoron.

To discriminate, by its definition, means to prefer one person over another. And in terms of the workplace, that often means to discriminate on the basis of such things as race, colour, religion, sexual preference or gender, rather than a person's ability to do a particular job.

This debate has reared its head again following the release last month of a report by consulting firm KPMG, which was paid by the Federal Government to review (yes, another review) the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act of 1999.

The report did not offer specific recommendations, but rather provided a summary of various submissions and options on increasing women's workplace participation, particularly when it comes to full-time employment.

Among the suggestions proffered was a mechanism to, in effect, establish a mandated quota for the percentage of women in a given workplace.

The problem here is that such schemes fail to recognise that equal opportunity is vastly different to equal (or a mandated level of) employment.

Sensibly, the federal Minister for the Status of Women, Tanya Plibersek – following media reports about the KPMG report over the weekend – has now said the Government has no plans to legislate to force private sector firms to employ minimum numbers of women.

Such a concept does have its supporters, however. The Australian Institute of Management's Queensland chief executive Carolyn Barker was quoted as saying: "There is evidence that when governments particularly put in quotas the number of women in executive positions and on boards increases. And I have to say, is that such a bad thing?"

Actually yes it is. In fact it is actually anti-women.

Having more women in executive and directorial positions is certainly not a bad thing in itself . . . except when it comes about as a result of some high-minded legislation rather than because of merit.

Australia already has fairly strong anti-discrimination statutes which dictate that an employer cannot reject a person for a job or promotion on such grounds as race or gender.

To me, to pursue such a pro-active pro-woman bias actually runs counter to our anti-discrimination laws as it potentially disadvantages people of merit because of their (male) gender in order for an artificial quota to be met.

What a lot of supporters of this "positive discrimination" also fail to understand is that such policy is actually quite condescending to working women. In effect it says that "because you are only a woman you need special laws and preferential treatment".

"Because you're a woman you're not good enough to get the job without a head-start."

Try running that one past some of our leading Australians who just happen to have a different chromosome to me, such as Julia Gillard, Australian Industry group chief executive Heather Ridout, or the likes of Westpac head Gail Kelly and see what sort of reception you get.

Certainly if my (full-time professional) wife and female colleagues (and this is an office of roughly 50 per cent women, many of whom also carry the word "editor" as part of their official title) are anything to go by, such gender quota systems are actually quite insulting.

The claim is often made that women are "under-represented" in various professions, particularly at a senior level.

This may in part be due to personal choice in some cases, but it also has a lot to do with time, in that it is only relatively recently that Australian laws, and indeed attitudes, have really started changing.

The senior management ranks of major companies are predominantly middle-aged and male and when you get to a board level they are mostly male and slightly older again.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, young women weren't embarking on the same career choices as they are today – and sometimes because of employer discrimination and societal attitudes of the time.

That has changed considerably, and the key to assessing the effectiveness of our approach to equal opportunity employment will be the number of young women today who in 20 or 30 years' time are filling the executive ranks of Australian companies.

Cultural shift takes time, and ham-fisted attempts at artificially managing gender balance in the workplace is just social engineering gone mad.

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